The unusual partnership between Daimler AG’s Daimler Mobility Services and Volvo-owner Geely Holding Group’s new ride-share business, Geely Group Company, will create a premium 50:50 ride-share joint venture in China, headquartered in Hangzhou.
The joint venture will provide ride-hailing mobility services in several Chinese cities, using premium vehicles including – but not limited to – Mercedes-Benz vehicles. The fleet initially will feature Mercedes-Benz S-Class, E-Class, V-Class and Maybach models.
It is proposed that it could be supplemented by premium electric vehicles from the Geely Group.
The joint venture will complement the Geely Group and Daimler expansion into new mobility services.
Both players already have ride-share businesses. Geely Holding has a Chinese service, called CaoCao, that has more than 17 million registered users, with one million regular active users on the app.
CaoCao provides more than 29,000 EVs in 28 cities in China and records more than 360,000 completed trips each day.
Daimler Mobility Services has ride-share businesses under the names car2go, Moovel, Mytaxi, beat, Clever Taxi and Chauffeur Privé. It has 26 million customers.
In China, Daimler is providing free-floating and station-based car-sharing services under car2go and car2share branding to more than 470,000 customers, who have completed over 20 million kilometres in car-sharing journeys.
The proposed JV is another step in the implementation of the Daimler CASE strategy, with its four pillars Connected, Autonomous, Shared & Service and Electric Drive.
By Neil Dowling
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